Plaintiff in iconic school speech case starts tour
By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press
Updated 10:29 am, Sunday, September 15, 2013
In this photo taken Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013, Mary Beth Tinker, 61, shows one of her collection of arm bands during an interview with the Associated Press in Washington. Tinker was 13 years old in 1965 when she wore a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War. School officials suspended her, leading to a lawsuit that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, almost 50 years later, Tinker has resigned her job as a nurse to spend six months traveling around the country to colleges and high schools to talk about free speech. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mary Beth Tinkerwas just 13 when she spoke out against the Vietnam War by wearing a black armband to her Iowa school in 1965. When the school suspended her, she took her free speech case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. Now 61, she's quit her part-time job as a nurse and will travel the country telling her story.
Tinker will visit her first school Monday in Philadelphia. After that, she's scheduled to travel by RV to 18 states and the District of Columbia as part of what's being called the "Tinker Tour." She'll log 10,000 to 15,000 miles, the equivalent of driving across the country three to five times, before her tour ends Nov. 25 in suburban Kansas City. Along the way, she'll stop at more than three dozen locations, most of them schools, and she plans a tour of schools in western states in the spring. Her message: Students should take action on issues important to them.
"It's better for our whole society when kids have a voice," Tinker said in a recent interview